Phonsie Mac Fhirleigheann, south Derry H-Blocks Blanketman, laid to rest in County Meath

» John Hedges

An Phoblacht Editor

‘He’d hate me for saying it but Phonsie Mac Fhirleigheann was a hero’

PHONSIE Mac FHIRLEIGHEANN, IRA Volunteer and H-Blocks Blanketman, was buried on Tuesday by republican comrades from across the republican family, including his native Bellaghy in County Derry and his adopted home in County Meath.

Phonsie died suddenly on 23 December. “No words could ever do justice to the energy and efforts that were invested by Phonsie into the republican project right up until yesterday,” Meath West Sinn Féin TD Peadar Tóibín said on hearing the news of Phonsie’s passing. “He did it all with a smile and tremendous humour.”

His funeral was attended by many prominent republicans, including South Derry MLA Ian Milne, a comrade of Phonsie’s and the legendary Francis Hughes.

This is part the oration given by Peadar Tóibín TD at Phonsie’s funeral in Navan and Castletown at which he offered the heartfelt sympathies of the republican family to Máire, Ciarán, and the extended McErlean family.

DIA DHÍOBH, a chairde Ghaeil, Ba mhaith liom buíochais a gabhail do Ciarán agus Marie as an deis labhairt anseo. Is onóir mór dom é in ainneoin gur onóir uafásach brónach é.

Táimid bailte anseo I Baile an Chaisleán chun cuimhneacháin, ómós agus honóir a thabhairt do dhuine de laochra na hÉireann a sheas sa bhearna baol nuair a bhí cabhair de dhíth ag muintir na sé contae. 

Ó gluaiseacht phoblachtaigh ba mhaith liom ár bhfíor comhbhrón a gabhail do clann Mac Fhirleigheann ar an lá uafásach brónach seo. Tá athair, fear cheile, dearthár, Uncle agus cara dhílis imithe uainn an seachtain seo agus ní bheidh a leithead ann arís.

Phonsie was first and foremost a father, a husband, a brother an uncle and a dear friend to so many people here in his adopted Meath. Phonsie was one of a kind.

He was a warm, decent and enormously friendly man who, more than most, loved the craic. He had a cheeky smile and a quick joke for everyone and he would lighten the mood wherever he went.

No matter what the stresses and strains in the party were over the years, Phonsie saw the big picture and his positive energy and humour would completely ease the atmosphere.

Phonsie was born into a large nationalist family like many of his generation. The only difference between Phonsie’s family and many others around Ireland was that he lived in a county that was and is occupied by the British state.

In practical terms, this meant that Phonsie and his family were second-class citizens in their own country. They did not have the equal right to vote, to housing, to jobs, to political affiliation, to free speech or to civil rights.

Most of all, they were denied the right to independence and self-determination. These rights were denied to them by 20,000 highly-armed British soldiers, making Phonsie’s childhood backyard the most highly militarised region in Western Europe.

When Phonsie was just 14, British soldiers shot 26 unarmed civilians during a peaceful civil rights protest in Derry just a few miles up the road. Fourteen people died on that day.

● Bloody Sunday, 30 January 1972

All of this jarred with Phonsie’s sense of justice and sense of Irish identity. Phonsie risked life, limb and his own freedom and volunteered for Óglaigh na hÉireann.

At the tender age of 19 years old, in 1977, Phonsie was sentenced to 13 years in prison. It’s hard to believe but he was locked away from his loved ones for the whole of the 1980s and was not released until he was in his 30s to the changed world in the 1990s.

And Phonsie did not meekly serve his 13 years but resisted from the inside on the Blanket Protest. 

13 years’ incarceration is a tough sentence for anyone. For many it broke health and spirits during this time but Phonsie went a significant step further and refused to wear a prison uniform. As a result, he endured significant pain and discomfort throughout most of his time, regularly being searched and beaten by prison officers, but Phonsie resisted and refused to break.

One of the most remarkable characteristics about Phonsie was his typical, unassuming manner. Even his family at home in Derry were not given the details of the beatings that he suffered.

It was not in Phonsie’s nature to complain, draw attention to himself or seek the tiniest level of recognition for his heroic efforts. When Phonsie joined us here in Meath Sinn Féin he very quickly became one of the most active members.

He took on roles with energy and vigour. Phonsie would never let you down. Whether it was postering in the wind and the rain at 3am in the morning or leading his cumann as Cathaoirleach.

● Meath Sinn Féin comrades – Eddie Fennessy, then Navan Mayor and Councillor Joe Reilly, Peadar Tóibín TD and Phonsie

No words could ever do justice to the energy and efforts that were invested by Phonsie into the republican project right up until last week. He did it all with a cheeky smile and tremendous humour. Phonsie was a rock. He will never be replaced and he will never be forgotten.

I’d like to mention briefly Phonsie’s love of the Irish language. Every time we’d meet our conversation would either start or finish in Irish. The language flowed through his veins and was as much part of his identity as the landscape of his own beloved Derry. He knew well the inherent relationship that binds our language and our freedom.

He’d hate me for saying it but Phonsie Mac Fhirleigheann was a hero.

● Naoise Ó Faoláin, Eoghan ‘Gino’ McCormack, Phonsie, ‘Sleepy’ Devine and Ian Milne at the National Hunger Strike Rally in Monaghan in 2013 (Photo: Peadar Whelan)

35 years after the H-Blocks Hunger Strikes, he joins with Sands; 100 years after the Rising, he joins with Pearse; and nearly 220 years after the United Irish Men fought in these fields for our freedom here in Castletown, County Meath, he joins with Tone.

There will be hundreds of individual conversations far into the future where people will proudly boast ‘I knew Phonsie Mac Fhirleigheann.’ And to the growing ranks of the new generation of republicans, his unassuming decency, his good humour and his struggle for justice and independence will be held up as an example of what it means to be an Irish republican.

After the 1916 Rising at his court-martial in Richmond Barracks, Thomas MacDonagh, speaking to the British Military Tribunal said of the 1916 Proclamation:

“You think that it is already a dead and buried letter, but it lives, it lives.

“From minds alight with Ireland’s vivid intellect it sprang, in hearts aflame with Ireland’s mighty love it was conceived.

“Such documents do not die.”

A chairde, that same flame burned brightly in Phonsie Mac Fhirleigheann’s heart throughout his whole life and that same flame will never be quenched as long as we, his republican family, continue the struggle that he held so dear.

A chairde Gael, ba mhaith liom cuireadh a thabhairt do Ian Milne, MLA Sinn Féin, agus sean comrádaí a bhí ag Phonsie teacht suas anseo agus cupla focal a rá.

● Mattie Casey of Comhairle Cuimhneacháin an Mhí removing the National Flag from Phonsie's coffin before presenting it with the IRA Volunteer's beret and gloves to Phonsie's son Kieran and wife Marie